Scarlett Thomas - "Going Out"

   What a unique premise for a book...  It SOUNDED interesting... Ok, I got conned!  I can admit that, I was suckered.  How, you ask?  My old roommate cleaned out her bookcase and handed over the goods.  She usually has amazing taste, so I accepted her offerings with gusto.  I have made my way through the box over the years and have generally enjoyed her taste in literature, but not so much this book.  I doubt she even finished reading it (which is probably why it was in the "give away box" now that I think about it.

     The book is primarily about Luke and Julie.  Luke is suffering from a very rare disease/allergy to sunlight that keeps him from being able to be exposed to any sunlight.  Julie is a mathematical genius, but is scared of everything from planes falling out of the sky and onto her to ingesting LSD that had been slipped into prepared foods by an angry food processing employee.  Her brilliant mind allows her to calculate probabilities for just about anything, and despite the low probabilities of some of these things happening to her, she is still afraid.  Sounds interesting right? (if in no other way than the "train wreck magnetism" of it all )

Going Out

     So long story short, Luke is basically trapped at home his entire life due to his illness with no real contact with the outside world with the exception of TV, books, Julie, and a limited number of friends from the neighborhood.  Julie is "trapped" in her own way as well, although it's more emotional/mental than physical.  To help balance the cast of characters out a little, there are quite a few "free spirits" thrown in for good measure, namely Charlotte; I love how they refer to her "type" as hippies throughout the book.   While in the end, Julie and Luke find freedom in one sense or another, it was not achieved in what I found to be a gratifying way.  What I mean by that, is that when Luke finally reaches the man claiming to heal his condition, it was merely an existential conversation that took place.  It may be that I'm just too dense to follow the conversation, or that I just didn't like it because it wasn't what I was expecting.  Who knows for sure??? 

     I do have to say, that although I didn't really enjoy the book, I was fascinated by how intelligent Julie was in regards to numbers, math, and mathematical theories.  That shows me that Ms. Thomas either knows something about math, or at least really knows how to write intelligently regarding math.  It was also interesting to see how she constructed a character who has no experience in the outside world other than basically TV.  It was a little extreme just how out of touch Luke was though.  For example, he got lost in an elevator and a stair well in a hotel, and truly had no grid for how they work or how to use them.  I find that a little bit of a strech, but then again, maybe that's actually how it would be if you never left your house. 

     Now... on to tackle something less existential and more Artemis Fowl, dum, da, dah, dum, DUM!!!!!